Six Months Later
“Are you sure about this?” I ask Renata for maybe the fourth time today.
She cradles her large bump and glares at me. “Kian…”
“I know, I know,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m just pointing out that you don’t owe him anything.”
“It’s not about that,” she says. “I want answers about my mother. And he’s the only one who knows the whole story. And anyway… he’s the only family I have left.” Her tone isn’t exactly sad, but there’s a certain melancholy there. Understandably so.
We’re sitting pretty close together. I have my arm draped around her shoulder, but I remove it and take her hand instead. We’d found Drago with his throat slit in a cell beneath Yannis’s mansion. Whether Yannis killed him or one of the Greek soldiers went too far, we may never know.
I’d expected a stronger reaction from Renata when I broke the news to her, but she’d just stared at me and asked to see his body. She stood over him for a long time, and when she turned away, her eyes were dry.
“Renata, are you okay?” I’d asked her.
“Not quite. But I will be.”
“It’s okay to mourn him. He’s your brother.”
“He was my brother. It’s just strange to think he’s not here anymore.”
“Do you need to sit down?”
She turns to face me. “You don’t have to worry about me, Kian. I knew what my brother was. What he did. He got the end he deserved.”
“Still, you don’t have to feel guilty for being sad.”
“If he’d been a better brother, a better man, I would have been sad. Right now, I’m just tired. I’m just glad it’s over.”
I nod. “Do you want to deal with his funeral arrangements yourself? Or should I take charge?”
“No, you can handle it. I’ve already said my goodbyes. Oh… but there is one more thing you can do for me.”
“Anything,” I say solemnly. “Name it and it’s yours.”
“Will you tell Aisling? She deserves to know her nightmare is over.”
I promised her I would. Then I’d spent the next few days watching her, waiting for her to break down. But the sadness I’d expected never came.
Apparently, she really had said her goodbyes.
But he was the last familiar face in her life. And after his death, she’d moved into my home, assimilated into my life, left behind the self she’d spent decades trying to escape. I appreciated how difficult the adjustment was for her. How difficult it still is.
But I couldn’t be prouder of her.
“I’m your family,” I remind her as often as I can. I say it again right now.
She tilts her face towards me and smiles. “Of course you are, my love,” she says with a nod. “I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t. I just… I know next to nothing about my parents, and I want…”
“Answers,” I finish when she trails off. “I know. I understand.”
She gives me a kiss on the cheek and leans her head against my chest as we drive through the city in the direction of the Grand Regent, where we’re meeting someone for lunch.
She’s made an effort for this meeting. She’s wearing a soft yellow dress that drapes over her shoulders and flows down her body. If you didn’t see the stomach, you wouldn’t even realize she was pregnant.
But Renata owns everything about her pregnancy. She’s one of those women who’ll find any excuse to announce to the world that she’s going to have a baby.
A miracle baby. That’s how she refers to our child.